Postpartum Complications

You have brought a child into the world — and your body will not come to rest. Instead of recovery, complications arrive: postpartum bleeding, infections, healing disturbances, states of exhaustion that exceed the normal measure. Medically there is an explanation for each of these complications — tissue damage, hormonal adjustment, weakened immune defences. All of that is real, and all of it needs care.

But there is a level beneath the surface that is rarely addressed. Your body has just performed the most intense thing it is capable of — it has brought forth life. And now, in the hours and days that follow, it is showing you through its complications something you may not yet have been able to admit to yourself: that the arrival of this child does not only trigger joy. But also fear. Overwhelm. And a sense of being torn that has no name.